3 things you get when you write your OWN website

Here in our neighborhood, we’re gearing up for another round of our uber-popular Write Your Website production lab. So I always like to have a conversation around what writing a website is REALLY about:

(1) The BIG questions. When you write your own website, you’ve got to spend time BEING with the fundamentals of your business. Getting clear on YOUR answers to questions like:

  • How do I actually work with people?
  • What is the problem I solve for clients and customers – and do I have evidence that they are willing to pay for it?
  • What makes people want to work with ME… and not someone else who does something similar?

Those are great questions to ask yourself as a business owner. Because they are clarifying questions – they cause you to put your stake in the ground. Make a declaration about who you are. Who you aren’t. And who you want to work with (or want to repel).

(2) Building fluency in the language of your audience. I’ve said it before + I’ll say it again: the idea that there are “magic words” you can find to describe what you do is horse poop. Forget about the magic words. Focus on service. Focus on connection. Focus on actually getting out of your comfort zone and being in relationship with real life human beings and asking them for money in exchange for your help.

Over the years, I used to talk newer business owners out of joining my Write Your Website lab, because they needed to actually TALK TO PEOPLE. But some of those folks pushed back. They told me that “seeing is believing” here – actually seeing their own words in writing helped them FIND THE WORDS they needed to get out there, and ask people for their business.

So okay, I was wrong about that. Y’all convinced me. Writing your website actually helps you rehearse how you express what you do, in a bolder, clearer, and more dynamic way.

(3)  Training yourself to GET S*** DONE.  This one is about two things. First, learning how to respond to the inner critic voice in your head that tells you this is s***, you are s****, and so on and so forth. You must learn how to have a working relationship with this voice as an entrepreneur/creator – and writing your website is a good place to practice grace with yourself, and forging ahead, onward through the fog.

Second, this is about understanding your creative and production process. We’re all different. Some people like to talk things out. Some like to have a crack at what we loving refer to as the “sh*tty first draft” (with thanks to writer Anne Lamott for the term) before they ask questions. Some like to dictate to a friend or software program, then edit. You’ve got to know how YOU work, so you can stop making yourself wrong or feel bad all the time for NOT working like other people. Writing a website is good for that, too.

Shout it from the rooftops!

"And last but not least – most interesting to me these days – is a fun little question that needs to get used more often: “how do I WANT this to go?”"

For example, do you WANT to write your website by yourself, feeling self-doubty and a bit wobbly? Or do you WANT the experience of having fun, being in community, being in conversation, and with a shortcut or ten thrown in along the way?

What I’ve gotten hip to lately is that I already know the experience I crave… it’s just a matter of giving myself free rein to follow that desire. And trust that it will take me where I need to go.

And you?

Mighty thanks to Jim Pennucci flickr photostream for the chat.

Working on writing your website? Get it done with Stella in her upcoming Write Your Website production lab. Write your Homepage, About Me page, and Services page – plus get trained in other essential online marketing and business building topics. Get on the mailing list to get the announcement when registration opens the first week in May, plus Early Birds get $100 off (the 5 week lab is regularly $597).

Stella Orange is a copywriter who helps people put their work into words. For eight years, she wrote email campaigns that resulted in more than a million dollars in sales for her clients. In that time, Stella also taught popular marketing writing workshops to business owners on both sides of the Atlantic -- and a few in Australia and New Zealand. In 2017, Stella cofounded a creative and consulting shop offering a complete and slightly unorthodox line of business advising and marketing services. She continues to write copy and advise clients on customer delight, how to resonate with more sophisticated, discerning clientele in your marketing, and just who, exactly, your ideal clients are. Stella is the founder of Show Up And Write, a weekly writing group and writes a letter every two weeks or so (here’s the sign-up). She lives with the Philosopher and their two kiddos in Buffalo, New York, a fifteen-minute bike ride to the Canadian border.

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